Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

Animal art by Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the land around Thubten Shedrup Ling Monastery, Bendigo, Australia, October 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

During Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s stay at Thubten Shedrup Ling Monastery near Bendigo in Australia, Rinpoche had several signs made to go with toy animals that had been placed along the path from the monastery to the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion. Above a small plush Tasmanian Devil, a sign in the shape of a speech bubble says:

“I the TASMANIAN DEVIL also take this great great unbelievable opportunity to achieve ultimate happiness, BUDDHAHOOD. It’s not for me, but for the sake of ALL SENTIENT BEINGS. Therefore I go around and prostrate to the stupa. Life is very short! And I don’t want to waste my life!! Ha Ha Ha.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing dogs at Thubten Shedrup Ling Monastery, Bendigo, Australia, October 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has given much advice on benefiting animals. Here is a suggestion for helping your pets and other animal friends:

“It’s also extremely good to bless food before you give it to animals. If you can’t do it for every meal, then you can bless all the food at the same time. Recite the five powerful mantras or OM MANI PADME HUM, Medicine Buddha, and Milarepa mantras. All of these have power and help anyone who eats this food to not be reborn in the lower realms; it blesses their mind and purifies negative karma. If you can, do it every time you feed them – recite the mantras and blow on the food. This is the biggest gift you can offer them: it causes a good rebirth, so they can escape samsara, achieve liberation, and acquire the positive imprints of the Mahayana teachings and mantras that lead to enlightenment.

“I asked the people who take care of our dogs at Tushita Centre in Dharamsala to recite the Maitreya Buddha prayer and mantra, the Lama Tsongkhapa praise to Guru Shakyamuni Buddha – ‘Having Found the Realization of Dependent Arising’ – and other prayers and mantras to the dogs, while holding a biscuit in their hand, so all the dogs wait patiently. It looks like they are respectfully listening to the teachings, with their eyes looking at the biscuit, all sitting humbly.”

Read more of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s instructions “How to Benefit Animals” on “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book,” which is part of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s webpage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche after the long life puja at the CPMT 2014 meeting, Australia, September 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“Lama Zopa: everything is in your hand –happiness or suffering, hell or enlightenment. Keeping your mind happy is not easy, but your business.”

– From Ven. Roger Kunsang’s Twitter page, posted on November 17, 2014

Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT Inc., shares Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent pith sayings on Ven. Roger’s Twitter page. (You can also read them on Ven. Roger’s Facebook page.)

More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s homepage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche practices tossing a small ball into a bucket during a picnic in Bendigo, Australia, October 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“People put a lot of effort into climbing Mount Everest, but it means nothing. They spend millions of dollars climbing Mount Everest just to get a reputation, just to get some dry name,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught to the students of the 33rd Kopan Course in 2000. “They put so many hundreds of thousands of dollars into a project which is totally meaningless. People spend so much money and effort and for their whole life they put effort into things which are totally meaningless and they only create negative karma, because their motivation is just attachment. It means nothing, and they totally waste all their money and their life, because they put so much effort for so many years into nothing.

“There are so many people in the world who have received a precious human body but are totally wasting it by doing meaningless actions. So, it is very important, while we are here, to follow the path to enlightenment. Even if we die while doing prostrations to the Buddha, we are still practicing Dharma, so if we die it is worthwhile. …”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche practices tossing a small ball into a bucket during a picnic in Bendigo, Australia, October 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Excerpted from the teaching “Putting Effort into Dharma Practice” found at the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. 

More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s webpage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche picnics with Sangha after the recent retreat, Bendigo, Australia, October 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Geshe Doga and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, Thubten Shedrup Ling, Bendigo, Australia, September 2014. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

From Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s “Compassion Is of the Upmost Need”:

From the Sutra Request by Lodro Gyatso: “The thought of complete enlightenment, preserving Dharma, practicing Dharma and having love and compassion for living beings: these four dharmas have infinite qualities – the limit of their benefits is not seen by the Victorious Ones. It is said that preserving Dharma and protecting the lives of living beings has limitless benefits.”

This shows that if we have COMPASSION for sentient beings, from those we can’t see with the naked eye but only under a microscope up to creatures the size of a mountain, then the Buddha has never explained the limits of the benefits of the compassion we generate for them. It’s the same as saving the lives of human beings, animals and insects; we must understand that it has limitless benefits.

A free PDF download of “Compassion Is of the Upmost Need,” Rinpoche’s 10 quotes on compassion, is available from the Foundation Store in letter and A4 formats.

More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s webpage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche practicing calligraphy in his room at Thubten Shedrup Ling, Bendigo, Australia, October 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote to a young Tibetan woman, the daughter of a cousin, who was concerned about having failed her exams. Rinpoche had enrolled her in nursing school in Dharamsala and she was afraid of failing her exams again. Rinpoche advised:

“You are not losing your enlightenment, your liberation from samsara. You’re not losing a good rebirth in your next life. If that were the case, that would be something to be seriously worried about. Put whatever effort you can into studying, but in the event that you don’t succeed, look at the activities of this life as like the activities of a dream. What one gains or loses in a dream, when one wakes up, is nothing. Especially when the time of death comes, the activities of this life become like a dream, just totally empty. Especially at that time, you can see that the work you do just for this life is totally meaningless.

“Therefore, you shouldn’t worry too much. Even if you don’t succeed, you will manage to find a job. You can always be helped. You have a good heart, therefore you have some merit. You shouldn’t have a difficult life. Therefore, don’t worry too much.”

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from “Failing Exams” on “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

In the bush near Thubten Shedrup Ling Monastery, Bendigo, Australia, November 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

In the bush near Thubten Shedrup Ling Monastery, there is a representation of a charnel ground and a meditator. Lama Zopa Rinpoche recently had a sign made to sit above the somewhat ghastly scene, which says:

“I have achieved shine and insight before you! Now I am about to directly see all phenomena in emptiness, therefore I can’t stand it! I can’t wait for even a second. Before you die, before you go to bed, very soon, I am going to be enlightened. I will be illuminating Bendigo and the whole world.”

Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and Rinpoche’s vision for a better world. Sign up to receive news and updates.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the new gompa at Thubten Shedrup Ling Monastery, Bendigo, Australia, November 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered this advice on the nature of the mind:

“The mind is like dough, which means you can make it into any shape: emotional, non-emotional, happy, not happy.

“Mind is like a child, so you should become the parents, like the father and mother watching and guiding the child. If you follow the child, if you become the child, it makes you crazy. Then, you always create obstacles and life becomes suffering.

“Or you become the guru and the mind is like the disciple – you watch and guide it. Or you are like a spy. You should be like a spy with your mind, always watching and blocking it when it is being negative and doing harm. It is like spying on a political person, examining what the person is thinking and planning, whether the person is performing positive actions or negative actions.

“Also, it is like you are the captain and the mind is the boat. Or you are the driver and the mind is the car, so therefore you have to always watch the car, and pay attention that you are traveling on the right road.

“If you don’t behave like this, then you are controlled by the mind.”

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from the page on “Meditation Practice” in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book,” part of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. 

Learn more about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche and his beneficial activities by visiting Rinpoche’s webpage, where you will find links to Rinpoche’s schedule, new advice, recent video, photos and more.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche and others on the top level (so far) of the Great Stupa for Universal Compassion, Australia, September 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

“The most unbelievable way to collect merit in the West is in the center, where you go to receive Dharma teachings, where there is a resident teacher from whom you take teachings and who you regard as your guru, and the students at that center have the same guru, so they are the disciples of one’s own guru, whether the guru is there at the center or far away, they are disciples of one’s own guru,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in April 2011. “So at the center making offerings to the students [of the same guru], even just offering a glass of water, or a glass of beer, a glass of whatever is the best beer, a glass of water, if you offer to everybody, can you imagine the merits? Woooooow. Can you imagine the merits? Wow, wow, wow, most amazing. Even if you offer to only one student you create far more merit than making offerings to numberless Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha in numberless universes. Offering to all those [is less merit] than offering one glass of water to a student who is the disciple of the same guru as you. So at the center even if you offer to only one person, [you create the] most unimaginable, unimaginable, unimaginable merit. Actually I should add more, I should add on unimaginable many hundreds, even thousands, I should be doing that: maybe the hours today, tonight, are not enough, it is a reality like this. …

“So to be able to come to the center, either giving to students, offering to them, or to the center itself, your time, finances, whatever, every single thing becomes an offering to the guru, and to all the pores of the guru – everybody who comes to listen to teachings, everybody who comes to meditate there, for their use, for their benefit, basically it is for all the sentient beings who come there, to benefit them, so the merits you collect, can you imagine? The merits that you collect are most amazing, most amazing.”

– From Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice “Collect Merit So Easily at the Center”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the path between the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion and Thubten Shedrup Ling Monastery, Australia, October 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“When Gelek Rinpoche was living in Delhi, he mentioned during teachings that the poor laborers working outside under the hot sun building roads or doing construction work look up through the windows of the large houses and see the air conditioning and fans,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche shared in Bodhisattva Attitude. “For them it seems like heaven and they think, ‘Those people have so much comfort and pleasure! How wonderful their lives are! They have no problems, only happiness!’ At the same time, the wealthy people living in the houses look down at the laborers and think, ‘Those people working on the road have such a good, simple life with no heavy responsibilities or problems!’ They are attracted to the poor people’s lives because they have so many business and relationship problems and a lot of worry and fear.”

“In a similar way, Kyabje Chöden Rinpoche explained that the mental suffering of the devas is heavier than the physical suffering of animals. 

“Numberless times we have been born and suffered like this in samsara due to ignorance, looking at the aggregates as being the I, the self, when in reality there is no I or self. This is the main wrong concept and from that come three others. …”

From Chapter 6, “Four Wrong Concepts,” of Bodhisattva Attitude: How to Dedicate Your Life to Others by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, edited by Ven. Sarah Thresher and published by Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

Learn more about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche and his beneficial activities by visiting Rinpoche’s webpage, where you will find links to Rinpoche’s schedule, new advice, recent video, photos and more.

The foundation for a new prayer hall at Ngari Khangsten is complete.

Earlier this year we reported on a $US100,000 donation that was made by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund, toward the building of a much-needed new prayer hall at Ngari Khangtsen, at Sera Je Monastery in south India.

We are pleased to report that the foundation is now finished. The project is employing a “small army” of local laborers who are working hard to build this wonderful new prayer hall.

There is not yet a projected date of completion as they have not yet acquired funds necessary to begin the next stage of construction. You are welcome to contribute directly to this next important phase of building.

This time of year, the monks of Ngari Khangtsen are pleased to have finished their annual exams. It was reported that the monks did very well this year.

Please rejoice in the completion of the foundation for this important project which will benefit so many monks studying Dharma so sincerely.

If you would like to learn more about the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund and how you can contribute to the many worthy projects which it supports, or if you’d like to know more about other charitable activity within the FPMT organization, you can see a list of the FPMT Charitable Projects and their descriptions.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing the Green Tara statue in Atisha Centre’s gompa, Bendigo, Australia, September 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

“It is said that there will come a time soon when there will no more qualified teachers to guide us. The teachings will still exist in books, and perhaps our wish to progress on the path will be there, but we will be without guides. And without somebody to lead us to enlightenment it will be impossible because the most subtle subjects can only really be understood, and more importantly realized, by taking guidance from a fully qualified teacher,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in the first chapter of Perfect Human Rebirth: Freedom and Richness on the Path to Enlightenment.

“Therefore, we must generate the determination to make the most of every moment. At this time, with this body and mind, in this environment, we have a unique and precious opportunity to understand the teachings of the Buddha and to generate the realizations of the path to enlightenment. If we attempt it, there is nothing we cannot do. We need to see this. We need to understand how limitless our potential is and not block our precious chance with delusions of incapability. ‘I can’t do it! I’m hopeless.’

“It is time to have big thoughts – huge thoughts! It is time to make vast plans, to lay out the immense project ahead of us and feel so happy that we can achieve our goal to develop ourselves to our ultimate potential. We have perfect role models in the Buddha and the numberless great yogis who followed him, as well as the precious lamas we have the fortune to be able to take teachings and gain inspiration from, and we have the understanding that we have exactly the same potential as they do. Shakyamuni was exactly like us once; His Holiness the Dalai Lama was exactly like us once. In turn, we can be exactly like them. All the conditions are there. What it needs now is our determination.”

From Chapter 1, “What is Dharma?” in Perfect Human Rebirth: Freedom and Richness on the Path to Enlightenment by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, edited by Gordon McDougall and published by Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s webpage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.